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JOURNALS MID-FIFTIES (1954-1958)

Name: JOURNALS MID-FIFTIES (1954-1958)
Author: Allen Ginsberg
ISBN: 0140239545

by Allen Ginsberg ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1995

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Ball has shaped these raw, revealing "journals" — gleaned from a dozen sources, including pocket notebooks and a large 1954 desk calendar bearing Ginsberg's random jottings — into the essential record of the questing, wild-eyed, lustful young poet's sexual, spiritual, and literary odyssey. The entries embrace the period from Ginsberg's early San Francisco days to the bittersweet arrival of the Beat Movement as a media curiosity. As early as the summer of 1954, when he was still lusting after Neal Cassady and before his romance with Peter Orlovsky, Ginsberg had "recognitions...crucial to the writing of Howl." These writings and poetic ramblings are peppered with "Howl"-like phrasings: "drunken naked apartments"; "bursts of tropic artichoke energy." He records his dreams, usually frank and frustrated sexual encounters, in detail. He also confesses real sexual episodes with Cassady, Orlovsky, women. Of more interest, perhaps, are his ruminations on poetry and process, his copious reading lists, his comments on friends such as William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Gregory Corso, and others. He marks the day in October 1955 when he debuted "Howl, Part 1" at the Six Gallery as the day when "the San Francisco Renaissance and a new American poetry were born." His early West Coast days and his sojourns to Mexico and Morocco have received ample attention. But manifest in his 1957-58 ramblings through Paris, Venice, and London is his profound sense of alienation, his cultivation of the notion of poet-as-expatriate, so evident in his work. On his return to the US and the media circus stirred up by Kerouac, he notes that his journal writing has "become too unspontaneous" and resolves to focus more on writing "loose poems," which fill hundreds of pages. "Only poetry," he notes, "will save America." Ball has illuminated and brought cohesion to the fragmented and often hallucinatory ruminations and ravings of a mad, genius poet. An important document has been added to the Beat canon.

Pub Date: April 1, 1995

ISBN: 0140239545

Page Count: 416

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1995

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FALL OF AMERICA JOURNALS, 1965–1971
by Allen Ginsberg ; edited by Michael Schumacher

- BOOK REVIEW
THE BEST MINDS OF MY GENERATION
by Allen Ginsberg edited by Bill Morgan

- BOOK REVIEW
I GREET YOU AT THE BEGINNING OF A GREAT CAREER
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti & Allen Ginsberg ; edited by Bill Morgan

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.